When the media turns its gaze to the violence in video games, it is usually the acts themselves which are labeled as disturbing, gratuitous, and unfit for public consumption. What is most disturbing and potentially harmful, however, is the way that violence is treated by the individual characters in the games. Mostly it is not seriously considered by the characters at all. Enemies are merely there to be killed, and their deaths mean nothing.

“You know how they say fusion power is fifty years away, and it’s been fifty years away since 1955? It’s beginning to sound to me like gaming’s Citizen Kane is five years away, and it’s been five years away since 1990.”

The thought strikes me that, in many ways, it sounds like my industry network security. Yeah, skill is required, of course, since we have things we want to actually get done. But somebody who shows up and is willing to engage in actual conversation, rather than a sales pitch, will go a long way, and I’ve seen a lot of folks get their start in odd ways because they were hungry.I suspect that this applies to lots of fields of human endeavor.